Children from Colorado Coalition for the Homeless Experience Adventure and Hands-On Learning at Colorado Adventure Point

The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, an organization “with a singular purpose to end homelessness,” visits the Denver Area Council’s Colorado Adventure Point facility each Wednesday during the summer as part of the coalition’s Renaissance Children’s Center program. The children’s center helps more than 100 homeless and low-income families each year with child care services. Overall, the coalition assists more than 18,000 individuals, including many families and children, provides medical and mental healthcare to roughly 13,000 individuals, and typically provides housing for more than 2,300 individuals, including many families.

As a part of their comprehensive approach to combating homelessness and the toll it takes on individuals, especially children, some youths in the care of the coalition have the opportunity to visit Colorado Adventure Point, a 20,000-square-foot indoor adventure and hands-on educational facility at the Denver Area Council’s Hamilton Scout Headquarters in Lakewood, Colorado.

On one visit in early July, children from the coalition practiced their archery skills and then spent time bouldering and climbing on Colorado Adventure Point’s expansive indoor climbing wall. For nearly two hours, Adventure Executive Jesse Greaves-Smith carefully explained the nuances of safe archery to the visitors and mentored them as they practiced the skills themselves at the facility’s indoor range. On their own accord, the children from the coalition listened with remarkable attentiveness and courtesy to everything that was explained and thoroughly enjoyed the archery experience.

After their archery experience was over, the youngsters moved to Colorado Adventure Point’s multi-story indoor climbing gym for an hour of climbing and bouldering, with spotters, of course. With 12 children having to take turns between four belays and one auto-belay machine, the seven remaining youths enthusiastically encouraged their friends on the wall or paired up to boulder on the gym’s lower wall. At the end of the experience, the children from the coalition hopped on the Colorado Adventure Point bus that brought them there and headed back to the Renaissance Children’s Center, already eagerly awaiting the next week’s visit.

To learn more about the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, click HERE.